Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Baylis, Douglas, 1915-1971 and Baylis, Maggie, 1912-1997
- Abstract:
- The Douglas and Maggie Baylis collection spans the years 1938-1998 and contains records relating to the Baylis firm's landscape design projects, publishing endeavors, and some personal items. The contents include personal papers, office files, project files, drawings, photographs, and writings. The records describe the Baylis commitment to the California landscape and its unique opportunities for indoor/outdoor living. The collection is useful for tracing the relationships between significant Bay Area designers of the 1950s and 1960s since many of the Baylis collaborators were also clients and friends. It is also a useful reference for research into modernism in landscape design, particularly the "California School" and Bay Area regional style. The collection also contains many of Maggie Baylis' illustrations, photographs and text from the monograph Doug wrote about architect Gordon Drake.
- Extent:
- 17 Linear Feet: 4 boxes and 5 flat file drawers
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Douglas and Maggie Baylis Collection, [1999-4] Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Douglas and Maggie Baylis Collection spans the years 1938-1998 (bulk 1943-1939). The collection contains records relating to the Baylis firm's landscape design projects, publishing endeavors, and some personal items. The contents include personal papers, office files, project files, drawings, photographs, and writings. The records describe the Baylis commitment to the California landscape and its unique opportunities for indoor/outdoor living. The collection is useful for tracing the relationships between significant Bay Area designers of the 1950s and 1960s since many of the Baylis collaborators were also clients and friends. It is also a useful reference for research into modernism in landscape design, particularly the "California School" and Bay Area regional style. The collection is divided into five series: Personal Papers, Professional Papers, Office Records, Project Records, and a unique series containing Construction Details and Landscape Structures.
The Personal Papers contain Maggie Baylis's correspondence and memories of her husband, Doug Baylis's obituary and memorial material, Doug Baylis's student work and a collection of poetry, and Baylis personal photographs.
The Professional Papers contain correspondence related to publishing, writings, presentation notes, certificates and awards, reference files, graphics intended for, and material intended for the Baylis' California Houses of Gordon Drake project (including photographs, drawings, and reference files).
The Office Records contain some administrative records, office correspondence, and financial records. This series also includes photographs of completed landscape design projects, reference photographs related to landscape design and construction details, and photographs of built landscape structures (designed by Doug and Maggie Baylis). The Office Records contain clippings—some of which are reference and many which were written or illustrated by (but not necessarily directly attributed to) the Baylis team.
The Project Records contain a list of Doug Baylis's early projects, project files, drawings and photographs. In-progress and site photograph locations are listed in manuscript column of Project Index, while photographs of finished projects are filed in the Office Records series. The projects include residential, commercial, recreational, religious, transportation, humanitarian, planning, governmental, educational, cultural, and funerary. Residential projects include Eichler's Highlands No. 3, Ping Yuen Housing Project in San Francisco, and many smaller-scale residential gardens. Other projects include Pacific Area Headquarters of the American National Red Cross, landscape plans for Bay Area Rapid Transit, Candlestick Park, IBM Headquarters, and San Francisco's controversial Portsmouth Square.
The final series, Construction Details and Landscape Structures, contains sketches, measured drawings, and notes for countless landscape details. These are divided into subseries based on type, including vegetation structures, landscape structures, ground plane treatments, garden furniture, and garden buildings.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Baylis, Douglas (1915-1971) Baylis, Maggie (1912-1997)
Douglas Baylis was born in 1915 in East Orange, New Jersey. In 1941, he graduated with a Landscape Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Early influences in Berkeley included teacher Leland ("Punk") Vaughn and mentor Thomas Church. Following graduation, Baylis worked in the Church office for about four years and then started his own firm. He is often credited (with Church, Eckbo, and Royston) as one of the founders of the "California School" of modernism in Landscape Architecture.
Maggie (Margaret) Hilbiber was born in 1912 in Tacoma, Washington. At age 16, she attended in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Fine Arts. After two years she was forced to return to Washington to look for work because of the Depression. When she moved to San Francisco in the mid-1940s, Hilbiber and a partner opened a graphics studio.
When Doug Baylis responded to Maggie Hilbiber's advertisement of "hands for hire," a decades-long professional and personal partnership began. Doug and Maggie Baylis married in 1948. Together they embraced conservation of the Northern California landscape and the ideals of outdoor living. Maggie's drafting facility complemented Doug's disdain for drafting, and many of the firm's design and publishing projects showcased their teamwork. Their earliest work included many modernist residential garden designs. Many residential clients and friends included collaborators (architects, photographers, and others) from larger public and commercial projects. These friends fondly recall gatherings at the Baylis home-office on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and their thoughtfully-situated Stinson Beach house.
Some of the most significant Baylis collaborations include work with the architect Gordon Drake. Doug Baylis worked with Drake on a house/garden in Carmel and on the Unit House—a house based on a 3' module with five distinct zones for California indoor/outdoor living. After Drake's sudden death, Doug and Maggie Baylis both contributed to the book California Houses of Gordon Drake.
In addition to specific site designs, the Baylis team produced many drawings of landscape structures and garden furniture. Many of these details and sketches may be found in built projects, magazine articles, or as kits sold in magazines (such as their plywood play equipment designs). Maggie and Doug Baylis are credited with pioneering a new "how-to" style of garden article writing that was eventually adopted by many popular magazines across the U.S. Their prolific technical instructions, handy tips, and clever ideas for the modern garden appeared—often anonymously—in House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, Sunset, McCall's, and Family Circle.
After her husband's death in 1971, Maggie Baylis continued to illustrate "how-to" articles for magazines and some additional publications including The Purple Thumb and Plant Parenthood. She also continued to be active in conservation of the Northern California landscape through many organizations from her new home in Sonoma, CA until her death in 1997.
Sources: Baylis, Douglas and Joan Parry. California Houses of Gordon Drake. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corp., 1956.
Baylis, Maggie: Correspondence & Memories of Doug Baylis. Douglas and Maggie Baylis Collection, (1999-4), Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
Mann, William. Landscape Architecture: An Illustrated History in Timelines, Site Plans, and Biography. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1993.
Obituary, Memorial, and Related Papers. Douglas and Maggie Baylis Collection, (1999-4), Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
Pimsleur, J.L. "Obituary—Maggie Baylis." San Francisco Chronicle. (December 24, 1997).
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the Curator.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Douglas and Maggie Baylis Collection, [1999-4] Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
- Location of this collection:
-
230 Bauer Wurster Hall #1820Berkeley, CA 94720-1820, US
- Contact:
- (510) 642-5124